Y. D. Chong graduated from Stanford University in 2003 with a BSc in Physics, and a BSc in Mathematical and Computational Science. In 2008, he obtained a Ph.D in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2009-2011, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University. In 2012, he received the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellowship and joined the faculty at Nanyang Technological University as an Assistant Professor in the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Research Interests

The focus of my research is topological photonics, a new field of photonics dealing with optical structures that support "photonic topological edge states": exotic electromagnetic waves that are qualitatively different from regular waves, analogous to electronic wavefunctions in topological insulator materials.

I am also interested in non-Hermitian photonics: photonic devices that exhibit qualitatively distinct behaviors in in the presence of optical amplification and/or dissipation. One such behavior is the phenomenon of "coherent perfect absorption"—the complete absorption of light via waveform tuning—a concept that I helped to develop.

I am also interested in several other areas, including the physics of random lasers, the theory of waves in lattices (e.g. Berry phase effects), nanoplasmonics, and computational electromagnetics.